{{short description|1917 sculpture by Marcel Duchamp}} {{italic title}} [[File:Marcel Duchamp, 1917, Fountain, photograph by Alfred Stieglitz.jpg|thumb|Marcel Duchamp ''Fountain'', 1917, photograph by Alfred Stieglitz at 291 art gallery following the 1917 Society of Independent Artists exhibit, with entry tag visible. The backdrop is ''The Warriors'' by Marsden Hartley.<ref name="Tomkins, p. 186">Tomkins, ''Duchamp: A Biography'', p. 186.</ref>]]
'''''Fountain''''' was a readymade sculpture attributed to Marcel Duchamp in 1917, consisting of a porcelain urinal signed "R. Mutt". The work is regarded by art historians and theorists of the avant-garde as a major landmark in 20th-century art.
In April 1917, an ordinary piece of plumbing was submitted for the inaugural exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists, to be staged at the Grand Central Palace in New York. When explaining the purpose of his readymade sculpture, Duchamp stated they are "everyday objects raised to the dignity of a work of art by the artist's act of choice."<ref name="Essential Surrealists">{{cite book |last1=Martin |first1=Tim |title=Essential Surrealists |date=1999 |publisher=Dempsey Parr |location=Bath |isbn=1-84084-513-9 |pages=42}}</ref> In Duchamp's presentation, the urinal's orientation was altered from its usual positioning.<ref name="Tate">{{cite web |url=https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/duchamp-fountain-t07573 |title=''Fountain'', Marcel Duchamp, 1917, replica, 1964 |publisher=Tate |website=tate.org.uk |access-date=5 October 2018}}</ref><ref name="Parkinson">[https://books.google.com/books?id=42zyAHflrxcC Gavin Parkinson, ''The Duchamp Book: Tate Essential Artists Series''], Harry N. Abrams, 2008, p. 61, {{ISBN|1854377663}}</ref><ref name="Judovitz">[https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0520213769 Dalia Judovitz, ''Unpacking Duchamp: Art in Transit''], University of California Press, 1998, pp. 124, 133, {{ISBN|0520213769}}</ref> ''Fountain'' was not rejected by the committee, since Society rules stated that all works would be accepted from artists who paid the fee, but the work was never placed in the show area.<ref name="Cabanne, P">[https://books.google.com/books?id=4SNKDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT14 Cabanne, P., & Duchamp, M. (1971). ''Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp''] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171115143609/https://books.google.com/books?id=4SNKDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT14&dq=cabanne,+Marcel+Duchamp+military+service&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwje6oi3mMDXAhXHWxQKHTsbBb8Q6AEIKDAA |date=15 November 2017}}</ref> Following that removal, ''Fountain'' was photographed at Alfred Stieglitz's studio, and the photo published in the Dada journal ''The Blind Man''. The original has been lost. Sixteen replicas were commissioned from Duchamp in the 1950s and 1960s and made to his approval.<ref name=cabinet>{{cite web |url=http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/27/duchamp.php |title=An Overview of the Seventeen Known Versions of Fountain |issue=27 |year=2007}}</ref>
In recent years it has been proposed that the original work was by the female artist Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/07/duchamp-elsa-freytag-loringhoven-urinal-sexual-politics-art |title=Duchamp and the pissoir-taking sexual politics of the art world| website=TheGuardian.com | date=7 November 2014 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/29/marcel-duchamp-fountain-women-art-history |title=When will the art world recognise the real artist behind Duchamp's Fountain? |last=Hustvedt |first=Siri |date=2019-03-29 |work=The Guardian |access-date=2019-03-31 |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> who submitted it to Duchamp as a friend.<ref name="Tate" /><ref name="Camfield">{{cite book |last=Camfield |first=William A. |title=Marcel Duchamp, Fountain |year=1989 |publisher=Houston Fine Art Press |location=Houston, TX |isbn=0939594102 |lccn=87028248 |pages=183}}</ref><ref>For a recent analysis of the reception of this story, see Krajewski, Michael: "Beuys. Duchamp: Two Stories. Two Artist Legends." In: ''Beuys & Duchamp. Artists of the Future.'' Magdalena Holzhey, Katharina Neuburger, Kornelia Röder, eds., Krefelder Kunstmuseen, Berlin 2021, p. 337–345, {{ISBN|978-3-7757-5068-4}}</ref> New research from Glyn Thompson, a former professor of art history at the University of Leeds, identifies the handwriting scrawled on the urinal as belonging to Von Freytag-Loringhoven, who was living and working in Philadelphia when the urinal was submitted to the exhibition in 1917. He also labels the urinal as a unique model made by a plumbing shop in Philadelphia—a city Duchamp never visited.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Alberge |first=Dalya |date=2023-10-15 |title=‘This was his revenge on art’: is Marcel Duchamp’s greatest work a fake? |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/oct/15/conceptualist-art-fountain-is-fake-say-historians-marcel-duchamp |access-date=2026-04-06 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Spalding |first=Julian |title=Art Exposed |publisher=Pallas Athene Publishers |year=2023 |isbn=9781843682400 |language=en}}</ref>
''Fountain'' is included in the Marcel Duchamp catalogue raisonné by Arturo Schwarz; ''The complete works of Marcel Duchamp'' (number 345).<ref>Arturo Schwarz, ''The complete works of Marcel Duchamp'', New York, Delano Greenidge, 2000</ref>
==Origin== thumb|upright=1.4|Eljer Co. Highest Quality Two-Fired Vitreous China Catalogue 1918 Bedfordshire No. 700 Marcel Duchamp had arrived in the United States less than two years prior to the creation of ''Fountain'' and had become involved with Francis Picabia, Man Ray, and Beatrice Wood (amongst others) in the creation of an anti-rational, anti-art, proto-Dada cultural movement in New York City.<ref>[https://repository.upenn.edu/dissertations/AAI3211072 Gaffney, Peter D, "Demiurgic machines: The mechanics of New York Dada. A study of the machine art of Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp, and other members of New York Dada during the period, 1912–1922"] (2006). Dissertations are available from ProQuest. AAI3211072.</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0198175132 Hopkins, David, ''Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst: The Bride Shared'', Volume 21 of Clarendon studies in the history of art], Clarendon Press, 1998, p. 74, {{ISBN|0198175132}}</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0816636192 Biro, Matthew, ''The Dada Cyborg: Visions of the New Human in Weimar Berlin''], G – Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series, University of Minnesota Press, 2009, p. 27, {{ISBN|0816636192}}</ref>
In early 1917, rumors spread that Duchamp was working on a Cubist painting titled ''Tulip Hysteria Co-ordinating'', in preparation for the largest exhibition of modern art ever to take place in the United States.<ref name="Catalogue">[https://archive.org/stream/catalogueannual00yorkgoog#page/n6/mode/2up ''Catalogue of the First Annual Exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists'']</ref> When ''Tulip Hysteria Co-ordinating'' did not appear at the show, those who had expected to see it were disappointed.<ref name="Sue Roe">[https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0241976596 Sue Roe, ''In Montparnasse: The Emergence of Surrealism in Paris, from Duchamp to Dali''], Penguin UK, Jun 21, 2018, {{ISBN|0241976596}}</ref> But the painting likely never existed.<ref name="Cabanne, P"/><ref>[https://www.lemonde.fr/ete-2007/article/2006/08/17/duchamp-piege-l-avant-garde_804171_781732.html Dagen, Philippe, "Duchamp piège l'avant-garde"], ''Le Monde'', 17 August 2006 (French)</ref>
[[File:Marcel Duchamp’s studio at 33 West 67th Street, New York, 1917-18, attributed to Henri-Pierre Roché.jpg|thumb|The urinal suspended in Marcel Duchamp's studio at 33 West 67th Street, New York, 1917–1918. Two other readymades by Duchamp are visible in the photograph: ''In Advance of the Broken Arm'' (1915), and ''Hat rack'' (''Porte-chapeau'') (1917). This photograph is reproduced at the top right of one of the plates from Duchamp's ''La Boîte-en-valise''.]]
[[File:The blind man MET b1120124 005.jpg|thumb|''The Blind Man'', No. 2, New York, 1917, p. 5, by Louise Norton. The article included a photo of the piece and a letter by Alfred Stieglitz, and writings by Louise Norton, Beatrice Wood and Walter Arensberg.<ref name="Blind Man"/>]] [[File:The blind man MET b1120124 006.jpg|thumb|''The Blind Man'', No. 2, New York, 1917, p. 6, by Louise Norton]] thumb|''Fountain'' reproduced in ''The Blind Man'', No. 2, New York, 1917 [[File:Jean Crotti, 1915, Portrait of Marcel Duchamp (Sculpture made to measure).jpg|thumb|Jean Crotti, 1915, ''Portrait of Marcel Duchamp (Sculpture made to measure)'', mixed media. Exhibited Montross Gallery 4–22 April 1916, New York City. Sculpture lost or destroyed<ref>[https://hdl.handle.net/2027/coo.31924065573929?urlappend=%3Bseq=463 Current opinion, Vol. LX, No. 6, June 1916, p. 431], Literary digest. New York: Current Literature Pub. Co., 1913–1925</ref>]] [[File:Museum in a Box - Marcel Duchamp - Cleveland Museum of Art (26647456772).jpg|thumb|A miniature of ''Fountain'' appears in Duchamp's ''Boîte-en-valise'', Cleveland Museum of Art]] According to one version, the creation of ''Fountain'' began when, accompanied by artist Joseph Stella and art collector Walter Arensberg, Duchamp purchased a standard Bedfordshire model urinal from the J. L. Mott Iron Works, 118 Fifth Avenue. The artist brought the urinal to his studio at 33 West 67th Street, reoriented it 90 degrees<ref name="Tate" /><ref name="Parkinson" /> from its originally intended position of use,<ref>To achieve an orientation resembling the photograph, an additional rotation by 180° about a vertical axis is necessary. The effect of both may be achieved by a rotation of 180° about an inclined axis.</ref><ref name="Judovitz" /><ref name="Adcock, 1987">[https://web.archive.org/web/20150907181449/http://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1208&context=dadasur Adcock, Craig. ''Duchamp's Eroticism: A Mathematical Analysis''], Dada/Surrealism 16 (1987): 149–167, Iowa Research Online, {{ISSN|0084-9537}}</ref> and wrote on it, "R. Mutt 1917".<ref>Tomkins, ''Duchamp: A Biography'', p. 181.</ref><ref name=villagevoiceIdol>Saltz, Jerry (February 21, 2006), [https://web.archive.org/web/20231112181515/https://www.villagevoice.com/idol-thoughts/ Idol Thoughts], ''The Village Voice''. .</ref> Duchamp elaborated: <blockquote> Mutt comes from Mott Works, the name of a large sanitary equipment manufacturer. But Mott was too close so I altered it to Mutt, after the daily cartoon strip ''Mutt and Jeff'' which appeared at the time, and with which everyone was familiar. Thus, from the start, there was an interplay of Mutt: a fat little funny man, and Jeff: a tall thin man... I wanted any old name. And I added Richard [French slang for money-bags]. That's not a bad name for a ''pissotière''. Get it? The opposite of poverty. But not even that much, just R. MUTT.<ref name="Tate"/><ref name="Camfield"/></blockquote>
At the time Duchamp was a board member of the Society of Independent Artists. After much debate by the board members (most of whom did not know Duchamp had submitted it, as he had submitted the work 'under a pseudonym') about whether the piece was or was not art, ''Fountain'' was hidden from view during the show.<ref>Cabanne, ''Dialogs with Marcel Duchamp'', p. 55</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Levine and Halle |first1=Sherrie and Howard |title=Fountain (After Duchamp: 1-6) La Fortune (After Duchamp: 1-6) La Fortune (After Man Ray: 1-6) |journal=Grand Street |date=1992 |volume=1 |issue=42 |pages=81–95 |doi=10.2307/25007559 |jstor=25007559 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25007559 |access-date=26 August 2021|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Duchamp resigned from the Board, and "withdrew" ''Tulip Hysteria Co-ordinating'' in protest.<ref name="Cabanne, P" /><ref>"Fountain", wrote the committee, "may be a very useful object in its place, but its place is not an art exhibition, and it is by no definition, a work of art."</ref><ref>Unsigned review, "His Art Too Crude for Independents", The New York Herald, 14 April 1917 (cited in Camfield, 1989, op.cit., 27)</ref> For this reason the work was "suppressed" (Duchamp's expression).<ref name="Judovitz"/>
<blockquote>No, not rejected. A work can't be rejected by the Independents. It was simply suppressed. I was on the jury, but I wasn't consulted, because the officials didn't know that it was I who had sent it in; I had written the name "Mutt" on it to avoid connection with the personal. The ''Fountain'' was simply placed behind a partition and, for the duration of the exhibition, I didn't know where it was. I couldn't say that I had sent the thing, but I think the organizers knew it through gossip. No one dared mention it. I had a falling out with them, and retired from the organization. After the exhibition, we found the ''Fountain'' again, behind a partition, and I retrieved it! (Marcel Duchamp, 1971)<ref>[https://archive.org/details/aliremodern/page/n25 Cabanne, Pierre, & Duchamp, Marcel, ''Dialogues With Marcel Duchamp''], Hudson, 1971, translated from French by Ron Padgett, Da Capo Press, archive.org</ref></blockquote>
The New York Dadaists stirred controversy about ''Fountain'' and its being rejected in the second issue of ''The Blind Man'' which included a photo of the piece and a letter by Alfred Stieglitz, and writings by Louise Norton, Beatrice Wood, and Arensberg.<ref name="Blind Man">[http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/dada/blindman/index.htm ''The Blind Man''], Vol. 2, 1917, p. 5.</ref> An editorial, possibly written by Wood, accompanying the photograph, entitled "The Richard Mutt Case",<ref>Tomkins, ''Duchamp: A Biography'', p. 185.</ref> made a claim that would prove to be important concerning certain works of art that would come after it:
{{blockquote|Whether Mr Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view – created a new thought for that object.<ref name="Blind Man"/>}}
In defense of the work being art, the piece continues, "The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges."<ref name="Blind Man"/> Duchamp described his intent with the piece was to shift the focus of art from physical craft to intellectual interpretation.
In a letter dated 23 April 1917, Stieglitz wrote of the photograph he took of ''Fountain'': "The "Urinal" photograph is really quite a wonder—Everyone who has seen it thinks it beautiful—And it's true—it is. It has an oriental look about it—a cross between a Buddha and a Veiled Woman."<ref name="Tate" /><ref>Naumann, Francis M., ''The Recurrent, Haunting Ghost: Essays on the Art, Life and Legacy of Marcel Duchamp'', New York, 2012, pp. 70–81</ref>
In 1918, ''Mercure de France'' published an article attributed to Guillaume Apollinaire stating ''Fountain'', originally titled "le Bouddha de la salle de bain" (Buddha of the bathroom), represented a sitting Buddha.<ref name="Apollinaire">[https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k201820t/f194.item Guillaume Apollinaire, ''Le Cas de Richard Mutt'', ''Mercure de France'', 16 June 1918], Gallica, Bibliothèque Nationale de France.</ref> The motive invoked for its refusal at the Independents were that the entry was (1) immoral and vulgar, (2) it was plagiarism, a commercial piece of plumbing.<ref name="Blind Man"/> R. Mutt responded, according to Apollinaire, that the work was not immoral since similar pieces could be seen every day exposed in plumbing and bath supply stores.<ref name="Blind Man"/><ref name="Apollinaire"/> On the second point, R. Mutt pointed out that the fact ''Fountain'' was not made by the hand of the artist was unimportant. The importance was in the choice made by the artist.<ref name="Apollinaire"/> The artist chose an object of every-day life, erased its usual significance by giving it a new title, and from this point of view, gave a new purely esthetic meaning to the object.<ref name="Blind Man"/><ref name="Apollinaire"/>
Menno Hubregtse argues that Duchamp may have chosen ''Fountain'' as a readymade because it parodied Robert J. Coady's exaltation of industrial machines as pure forms of American art.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Hubregtse, Menno|title=Robert J. Coady's The Soil and Marcel Duchamp's Fountain: Taste, Nationalism, Capitalism, and New York Dada|journal=RACAR: Revue d'art canadienne / Canadian Art Review|year=2009|volume=34|issue=2|pages=28–42|doi=10.7202/1069487ar|jstor=42630803|url=https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/racar/2009-v34-n2-racar05296/1069487ar/|doi-access=free}}</ref> Coady, who championed his call for American art in his publication ''The Soil'', printed a scathing review of Jean Crotti's ''Portrait of Marcel Duchamp (Sculpture Made to Measure)'' in the December 1916 issue. Hubregtse notes that Duchamp's urinal may have been a clever response to Coady's comparison of Crotti's sculpture with "the absolute expression of a—plumber."<ref>Quoted in Hubregtse, "Robert J. Coady's The Soil and Marcel Duchamp's Fountain," 32</ref>
Shortly after its initial exhibition, ''Fountain'' was lost. According to Duchamp biographer Calvin Tomkins, the best guess is that it was thrown out as rubbish by Stieglitz, a common fate of Duchamp's early readymades.<ref name="Telegraph">Quoted in {{cite news|author=Gayford, Martin|title=The practical joke that launched an artistic revolution|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3671180/Duchamps-Fountain-The-practical-joke-that-launched-an-artistic-revolution.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3671180/Duchamps-Fountain-The-practical-joke-that-launched-an-artistic-revolution.html |archive-date=2022-01-12 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|work=The Daily Telegraph|date=16 February 2008|page=10 at 11|location=London}}{{cbignore}}</ref> However, the myth goes that the original ''Fountain'' was in fact not thrown out but returned to Richard Mutt by Duchamp.<ref name=":0">[https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/items/detail/marcel-duchamp-to-suzanne-777 Marcel Duchamp to Suzanne, 11 April 1917]. Jean Crotti papers, 1913–1973, bulk 1913–1961. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution</ref><ref name="Gammel">{{cite book|author-link=Irene Gammel|author=Gammel, Irene|title=Baroness Elsa: Gender, Dada, and Everyday Modernity|year=2002|publisher=The MIT Press|location=Cambridge|pages=[https://archive.org/details/baronesselsagend0000gamm/page/222 222–227]|isbn=0-262-07231-9|url=https://archive.org/details/baronesselsagend0000gamm/page/222}}</ref><ref name=":1">Marcel Duchamp, ''Affectionately, Marcel: The Selected Correspondence of Marcel Duchamp'', ed. Francis M. Naumann and Hector Obalk (Ghent: Ludion Press, 2000), p. 47</ref>
The reaction engendered by ''Fountain'' continued for weeks following the exhibition submission. An article was published in Boston on 25 April 1917:
{{Blockquote|A Philadelphian, Richard Mutt, member of the society, and not related to our friend of the "Mutt and Jeff" cartoons, submitted a bathroom fixture as a "work of art." The official record of the episode of its removal says:
"Richard Mutt threatens to sue the directors because they removed the bathroom fixture, mounted on a pedestal, which he submitted as a 'work of art.' Some of the directors wanted it to remain, in view of the society's ruling of 'no jury' to decide on the merits of the 2500 paintings and sculptures submitted. Other directors maintained that it was indecent at a meeting and the majority voted it down. As a result of this Marcel Duchamp retired from the Board. Mr. Mutt now wants more than his dues returned. He wants damages."<ref>Franklin Clarkin, "Two Miles of Funny Pictures," Boston Evening Transcript, 25 April 1917.</ref><ref>[http://www.golob-gm.si/5-marcel-duchamp-as-rectified-readymade/f-marcel-duchamp-fountain.htm#FNanchor_17 William A. Camfield, ''Marcel Duchamp's Fountain, Its History and Aesthetics in the Context of 1917'' (Part 1)], Dada/Surrealism 16 (1987): pp. 64–94.</ref>}}
Duchamp began making miniature reproductions of ''Fountain'' in 1935, first in papier-mâché and then in porcelain,<ref>{{Cite web|title=A Museum That is Not|url=https://www.e-flux.com/journal/04/68554/a-museum-that-is-not/|access-date=2020-08-14|website=www.e-flux.com|language=en}}</ref> for his multiple editions of a miniature museum 'retrospective' titled ''Boîte-en-valise'' or 'box in a suitcase', 1935–66.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Duchamp|first=Marcel|title=Boîte-en-valise [The box in a valise]|url=https://artsearch.nga.gov.au/detail.cfm?IRN=64922|access-date=2020-08-14|website=Item held by National Gallery of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=MoMA.org {{!}} Interactives {{!}} Exhibitions {{!}} 1999 {{!}} Museum as Muse {{!}} Duchamp|url=https://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/1999/muse/artist_pages/duchamp_boite.html|access-date=2020-08-14|website=www.moma.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=From or by Marcel Duchamp or Rrose Sélavy|url=https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2007.157|website=Cleveland Museum of Art|date=31 October 2018}}</ref> Duchamp carried many of these miniature works within ''The Suitcase'' which were replicas of some of his most prominent work.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Martin |first1=Tim |title=Essential Surrealists |date=1999 |publisher=Dempsey Parr |location=Bath |isbn=1-84084-513-9 |pages=42–47}}</ref> The first 1:1 reproduction of ''Fountain'' was authorized by Duchamp in 1950 for an exhibition in New York; two more individual pieces followed in 1953 and 1963, and then an artist's multiple was manufactured in an edition of eight in 1964.<ref>{{cite web|title=An Overview of the Seventeen Known Versions of Fountain|url=https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/27/duchamp.php|date=Fall 2007|access-date=2022-01-02|website=www.cabinetmagazine.org|language=en}}</ref><ref>[http://arthist.binghamton.edu/duchamp/fountain.html Essay on Fountain] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041012093700/http://arthist.binghamton.edu/duchamp/fountain.html |date=2004-10-12 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Funcke|first=Bettina|url=http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/1181229/24797451/1398712554600/10_Funcke_Not_Objects_so_much_as_images.pdf?token=SqnqsYGZoVAwn46zo9e3rg6Q1Q4%3D|title=Not Objects so much as Images|year=2013|pages=279}}{{Dead link|date=November 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> These editions ended up in a number of important public collections; Indiana University Art Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Canada, Centre Georges Pompidou and Tate Modern. The edition of eight was manufactured from glazed earthenware painted to resemble the original porcelain, with a signature, reproduced in black paint.<ref name="Tate" />
== Controversy around authorship == Some have contested that Duchamp created ''Fountain'', but rather assisted in submitting the piece to the Society of Independent Artists for a female friend. In a letter dated 11 April 1917 Duchamp wrote to his sister Suzanne: "Une de mes amies sous un pseudonyme masculin, Richard Mutt, avait envoyé une pissotière en porcelaine comme sculpture" ("One of my female friends under a masculine pseudonym, Richard Mutt, sent in a porcelain urinal as a sculpture.")<ref name=":0" /><ref name="Gammel" /><ref name=":1" /> Duchamp never identified his female friend, but three candidates have been proposed: an early appearance of Duchamp's female alter ego Rrose Sélavy;<ref name="Tate" /><ref name="Camfield" /> the Dadaist Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven;<ref name="Gammel" /><ref>Robert Reiss, "My Baroness: Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven" in ''New York Dada'', edited by Rudolf E. Kuenzli (New York: Willis Locker & Owens, 1986), pages 81–101.</ref> or Duchamp's close friend,<ref>{{Cite web|last=Tate|title='Fountain', Marcel Duchamp, 1917, replica 1964|url=https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/duchamp-fountain-t07573|access-date=2020-07-26|website=Tate|language=en-GB}}</ref> the Dada poet Louise Norton (later married to the avant-garde composer Edgard Varèse),<ref name="Lubin">[https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0190218614 David M. Lubin, ''Grand Illusions: American Art and the First World War''], Oxford University Press, 2016, {{ISBN|0190218622}}</ref> who contributed an essay to ''The Blind Man'' discussing ''Fountain'',<ref name="Blind Man" /> and whose address is partially discernible on the paper entry ticket in the Stieglitz photograph.<ref>Francis M. Naumann, ''New York Dada, 1915–23'' (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994), p. 239, note 17.</ref> On one hand, the fact that Duchamp wrote 'sent' not 'made', does not indicate that someone else created the work.<ref name="Tate" /> Duchamp's female alter ego has been discredited as the inception of Rrose Sélavy occurred in the 1920s, years after the initial exhibition.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Marcel Duchamp as Rrose Sélavy |url=https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/56973 |access-date=2023-08-09 |website=philamuseum.org |language=en}}</ref> Furthermore, there is no documentary or testimonial evidence that suggests von Freytag created ''Fountain''.<ref name="Tate" /> However, despite a lack of documentary evidence, it has been proven<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gammel |first=Irene |date=2002 |title=Baroness Elsa |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/1517.001.0001 |doi=10.7551/mitpress/1517.001.0001|isbn=9780262273435 }}</ref> that von Freytag had been experimenting with the concept of bodily fluids as ''high art'' in her practice, even collaborating with photographer Morton Livingston Schamberg on the piece, ''God'' (1917),<ref>{{Cite web |title=God |url=https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/51106 |access-date=2023-08-09 |website=philamuseum.org |language=en}}</ref> which maintains a similar message and aesthetic to that of ''Fountain''. The piece had been attributed to Schamberg until the Philadelphia Museum of Art adjusted the accreditation.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Thill |first=Vanessa |date=2018-09-18 |title=Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, the Dada Baroness Who Invented the Readymade—before Duchamp |url=https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-elsa-von-freytag-loringhoven-dada-baroness-invented-readymade |access-date=2023-08-09 |website=Artsy |language=en}}</ref>
Further arguments against Duchamp as author have included that the R. Mutt, signature makes more sense as a German pun on ''armut'' (poverty) or ''mutter'' (mother), taking into consideration the geo-political climate at the time and the tension between Germany and the US.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Spalding |first=Julian |title=Art Exposed |publisher=Pallas Athene |year=2023 |pages=131–137}}</ref> Glyn Thompson argues this was Loringhoven's attempt at political commentary. Thompson also disputes Duchamp's own claim (that he made in 1966 to Otto Hanh) of the urinal's origins coming from the J. L. Mott Iron Works plumbing retailer as Thompson discovered they would not have stocked this type of urinal. The signature could not have been inspired by the name of J. L. Mott because Duchamp could not have purchased the urinal there. The only place this urinal could be purchased at that time was in Philadelphia, where Loringhoven was residing at the time, a city Duchamp never visited. <ref name=":2" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=The Jackdaw – Marcel Duchamp's Fountain… he lied! |url=http://www.thejackdaw.co.uk/?p=1644 |access-date=2024-03-20 |language=en-US}}</ref>
== Interpretations == Of all the unaltered readymades by Duchamp, ''Fountain'' is perhaps the best known because, according to Dave Praeger, the symbolic meaning of the toilet takes the conceptual challenge posed by the readymades to their most visceral extreme.{{How|date=November 2024}}<ref>See {{cite book|author=Praeger, Dave|title=Poop Culture: How America is Shaped by its Grossest National Product|location=Los Angeles, Calif.|publisher=Feral House|year=2007|isbn=978-1-932595-21-5}}</ref> Similarly, philosopher Stephen Hicks<ref name="Hicks">{{cite book|author=Hicks, Stephen R. C.|title=Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault|publisher=Scholargy Press|location=Tempe, AZ|date=2004|page=196|isbn=1-59247-646-5|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oxOTMZD_fecC&pg=PA196}}</ref> argued that Duchamp, who was quite familiar with the history of European art, was obviously making a provocative statement with ''Fountain'':
{{blockquote|The artist is a not great creator—Duchamp went shopping at a plumbing store. The artwork is not a special object—it was mass-produced in a factory. The experience of art is not exciting and ennobling—at best it is puzzling and mostly leaves one with a sense of distaste. But over and above that, Duchamp did not select just any ready-made object to display. In selecting the urinal, his message was clear: Art is something you piss on.<ref name="Hicks"/>}}
The impact of Duchamp's ''Fountain'' changed the way people view art due to his focus upon "cerebral art" contrary to merely "retinal art", as this was a means to engage prospective audiences in a thought-provoking way as opposed to satisfying the aesthetic status quo "turning from classicism to modernity".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rescher |first1=Nicholas |title=A Journey through Philosophy in 101 Anecdotes |date=2015 |publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press |isbn=978-0-8229-8044-5 |pages=223}}</ref> "The entire point of ''Fountain'' was that the importance was not the object but the idea, the gesture, and the reactions the idea prompted."<ref>Strausbaugh, John (2026). ''Duchamp Takes New York''. New York and London: OR Books, p. 62.</ref>
Since the photograph taken by Stieglitz is the only image of the original sculpture, there are some interpretations of ''Fountain'' by looking not only at reproductions but this particular photograph. Tomkins notes:
{{blockquote|Arensberg had referred to a 'lovely form' and it does not take much stretching of the imagination to see in the upside-down urinal's gently flowing curves the veiled head of a classic Renaissance Madonna or a seated Buddha or, perhaps more to the point, one of Brâncuși's polished erotic forms.<ref name="Tomkins, p. 186"/><ref>[https://www.toutfait.com/issues/volume2/issue_5/articles/dur/dur5.html#N_63_ Julia Dür, ''Glasswanderers, If that’s art, I’m a Hottentott''], Tout-fait, Vol. 2, Issue 5, April 2003, Succession Marcel Duchamp</ref>}}
Expanding upon the erotic interpretation linked to Brâncuși's work, Tim Martin has argued there were strong sexual connotations with the ''Fountain'', linked to it being placed horizontally. He goes onto say:
{{blockquote|In placing the urinal horizontally it appears more passive, and feminine, while remaining a receptacle designed for the functioning of the male penis.<ref name="Essential Surrealists">{{cite book |last1=Martin |first1=Tim |title=Essential Surrealists |date=1999 |publisher=Dempsey Parr |location=Bath |isbn=1-84084-513-9 |pages=42}}</ref>}}
The meaning (if any) and intention of both the piece and the signature "R. Mutt", are difficult to pin down precisely. It is not clear whether Duchamp had in mind the German {{lang|de|Armut}} (meaning "poverty"), or possibly {{lang|de|Urmutter}} (meaning "great mother").<ref name=Gammel/> The name R. Mutt could also be a play on its commercial origins or on the famous comic strip of the time, ''Mutt and Jeff'' (making the urinal perhaps the first work of art based on a comic).<ref>Francis M. Naumann, Beth Venn, ''Making mischief: Dada invades New York'', Harry N. Abrams, Whitney Museum of American Art, 1997, p. 20.</ref> Duchamp said the R stood for Richard, French slang for "moneybags", which according to one critic makes ''Fountain'' "a kind of scatological golden calf".<ref name=villagevoiceIdol/>
Rhonda Roland Shearer in the online journal {{lang|fr|Tout-Fait}} (2000) suspects that the Stieglitz photograph is a composite of different photos, while other scholars such as William Camfield have never been able to match the urinal shown in the photo to any urinals found in the catalogues of the time period.<ref name="Camfield" />
In a 1964 interview with Otto Hahn, Duchamp suggested he purposefully selected a urinal because it was disagreeable. The choice of a urinal, according to Duchamp, "sprang from the idea of making an experiment concerned with taste: choose the object which has the least chance of being liked. A urinal—very few people think there is anything wonderful about a urinal."<ref name="Adcock, 1987" /><ref>Hahn, Otto, "Marcel Duchamp", ''L'Express'', Paris, No. 684, 23 July 1964, p. 22. Quoted in Arturo Schwarz, ''The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp'', New York, Abrams, 1970, p. 466</ref>
Rudolf E. Kuenzli states, in ''Dada and Surrealist Film'' (1996), after describing how various readymades are presented or displayed: "This decontextualization of the object's functional place draws attention to the creation of its artistic meaning by the choice of the setting and positioning ascribed to the object." He goes on to explain the importance of naming the object (ascribing a title). At least three factors came into play: the choice of object, the title, and how it was modified, if at all, from its 'normal' position or location. By virtue of placing a urinal on a pedestal in an art exhibition, the illusion of an artwork was created.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?isbn=026261121X Rudolf E. Kuenzli, ''Dada and Surrealist Film''], MIT Press, 1996, p. 47, {{ISBN|026261121X}}</ref>
Duchamp drew an ink copy of the 1917 Stieglitz photograph in 1964 for the cover of an exhibition catalogue, ''Marcel Duchamp: Ready-mades, etc., 1913–1964''. The illustration appeared as a photographic negative. Later, Duchamp made a positive version, titled ''Mirrorical Return'' ({{lang|fr|Renvoi miroirique}}; 1964). Dalia Judovitz writes:
{{blockquote|Structured as an emblem, the visual and linguistic elements set up a punning interplay that helps us to explore further the mechanisms that ''Fountain'' actively stages. On the one hand, there is the mirror-effect of the drawing and the etching, which although they are almost identical visually, involve an active switch from one artistic medium to the other. On the other hand, there is the internal mirrorical return of the image itself, since this urinal, like the one in 1917, has been rotated ninety degrees. This internal rotation disqualifies the object from its common use as a receptacle, and reactivates its poetic potential as a fountain; that is, as a machine for waterworks. The "splash" generated by ''Fountain'' is thus tied to its "mirrorical return", like the faucet in the title.<ref name="Judovitz" />}}
During the 1950s and 1960s, as ''Fountain'' and other readymades were rediscovered, Duchamp became a cultural icon in the world of art, exemplified by a "deluge of publications", as Camfield noted, "an unparalleled example of timing in which the burgeoning interest in Duchamp coincided with exhilarating developments in avant-garde art, virtually all of which exhibited links of some sort to Duchamp". His art was transformed from "a minor, aberrant phenomenon in the history of modern art to the most dynamic force in contemporary art".<ref name="Camfield" /><ref name="Lubin"/>
==Legacy== In December 2004, Duchamp's ''Fountain'' was voted the most influential artwork of the 20th century by 500 selected British art world professionals. Second place was afforded to Picasso's ''Les Demoiselles d'Avignon'' (1907) and third to Andy Warhol's ''Marilyn Diptych'' (1962).<ref>{{cite news|title=Duchamp's urinal tops art survey|url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4059997.stm|work=BBC News|date=1 December 2004|access-date=5 October 2018}}</ref> ''The Independent'' noted in a February 2008 article that with this single work, Duchamp invented conceptual art and "severed forever the traditional link between the artist's labour and the merit of the work".<ref name="Independent">{{cite news|last=Hensher|first=Philip|title=The loo that shook the world: Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art-and-architecture/features/the-loo-that-shook-the-world-duchamp-man-ray-picabi-784384.html|work=The Independent|date=20 February 2008|pages=2–5|location=London}}</ref>
Jerry Saltz wrote in ''The Village Voice'' in 2006:
{{blockquote|Duchamp adamantly asserted that he wanted to "de-deify" the artist. The readymades provide a way around inflexible either-or aesthetic propositions. They represent a Copernican shift in art. Fountain is what's called an "acheropoietoi," {{sic}} an image not shaped by the hands of an artist. Fountain brings us into contact with an original that is still an original but that also exists in an altered philosophical and metaphysical state. It is a manifestation of the Kantian sublime: A work of art that transcends a form but that is also intelligible, an object that strikes down an idea while allowing it to spring up stronger.<ref name=villagevoiceIdol/>}}
Others have questioned whether Duchamp's ''Fountain'' really could constitute a work of art. Grayson Perry stated in ''Playing to The Gallery'' in 2014: "When he decided that anything could be art he got a urinal and brought it into an art gallery... I find it quite arrogant, that idea of just pointing at something and saying 'That's art.'"<ref>{{cite book |last1=Perry |first1=Grayson |title=Playing to the Gallery |year=2016 |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=978-0-141-97961-8 |pages=46}}</ref>
===Interventions=== [[File:'Fountain' by Marcel Duchamp (replica).JPG|thumb|An inexact ''Fountain'' replica, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art]]
Several performance artists have attempted to contribute to the piece by urinating in it. South African born artist Kendell Geers rose to international notoriety in 1993 when, at a show in Venice, he urinated into ''Fountain''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.onepeople.com/archive/html/geers2.html|title=Kendell Geers- Conceptual Artist|website=www.onepeople.com|access-date=5 October 2018}}</ref> Artist/musician Brian Eno declared he successfully urinated in ''Fountain'' while it was exhibited in the MoMA in 1993. He admitted that it was only a technical triumph because he needed to urinate in a tube in advance so he could convey the fluid through a gap between the protective glass.<ref>{{cite news|last=Blacklock|first=Mark|title=Art attacks|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3597350/Art-attacks.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3597350/Art-attacks.html |archive-date=2022-01-12 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|access-date=9 May 2013|newspaper=The Daily Telegraph|date=26 June 2003}}{{cbignore}}</ref> Swedish artist Björn Kjelltoft urinated in ''Fountain'' at Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 1999.<ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20110517081532/http://hem.passagen.se/gkrantz/ett/artiklar/kjell.html Årets största konsthändelse]}}</ref>
In spring 2000, Yuan Chai and Jian Jun Xi, two performance artists, who in 1999 had jumped on Tracey Emin's installation-sculpture ''My Bed'' in the Turner Prize exhibition at Tate Britain, went to the newly opened Tate Modern and tried to urinate on the ''Fountain'' which was on display. However, they were prevented from soiling the sculpture directly by its Perspex case. The Tate, which denied that the duo had succeeded in urinating into the sculpture itself,<ref>{{cite web|title=Tate focus for artistic debate|url=http://www.hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk/MultimediaStudentProjects/00-01/9704524l/MM%20Project/Html/badly3.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021221052306/http://www.hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk/MultimediaStudentProjects/00-01/9704524l/MM%20Project/Html/badly3.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=21 December 2002|publisher=Press Association (referred to on the website of the Humanities Advanced Technology & Information Institute, University of Glasgow)|date=21 May 2000|access-date=17 February 2008|df=dmy-all}}</ref> banned them from the premises stating that they were threatening "works of art and our staff." When asked why they felt they had to add to Duchamp's work, Chai said, "The urinal is there – it's an invitation. As Duchamp said himself, it's the artist's choice. He chooses what is art. We just added to it."<ref name="Independent"/>
On January 4, 2006, while on display in the Dada show in the Pompidou Centre in Paris, ''Fountain'' was attacked by Pierre Pinoncelli, a 76-year-old French performance artist, most noted for damaging two of the eight copies of ''Fountain''. The hammer he used during the assault on the artwork caused a slight chip.<ref>[http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20060212191356996 "Pierre Pinoncelli: This man is not an artist" at infoshop.org] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141204113832/http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20060212191356996|date=4 December 2014}}</ref> Pinoncelli, who was arrested, said the attack was a work of performance art that Marcel Duchamp himself would have appreciated.<ref name=bbcpinocelli>{{cite news|title=Man held for hitting urinal work|url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4587988.stm|work=BBC News|date=6 January 2006|access-date=5 October 2018}}</ref> In 1993 Pinoncelli urinated into the piece while it was on display in Nimes, in southern France. Both of Pinoncelli's performances derive from neo-Dadaists' and Viennese Actionists' intervention or manoeuvre.<ref>Revue Internationale du Droit d'Auteur, Issues 197–198, Association française pour la diffusion du droit d'auteur national et international, 2003, p. 30.</ref>
=== Reinterpretations === [[File:Sherrie Levine.jpg|thumb|''Fountain (Buddha)'', a bronze remake by Sherrie Levine, 1996]] Appropriation artist Sherrie Levine created bronze copies in 1991 and 1996 titled ''Fountain (Madonna)'' and ''Fountain (Buddha)'' respectively''.''<ref>{{Cite web|title=SHERRIE LEVINE: MAYHEM|url=https://whitney.org/audio-guides/9?language=english&type=general&night=false&page=1&stop=3|access-date=2020-08-14|website=whitney.org|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Fountain (Buddha)|url=https://www.fundacionjumex.org/en/fundacion/coleccion/5-fountain-buddha-urinal-buda|access-date=2020-08-14|website=Museo Jumex|language=en}}</ref> They are considered to be an "homage to Duchamp's renowned readymade. By doing so, Levine is re-evaluating 3D objects within the realm of appropriation, like the readymades, to mass-produced photographic art.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Levine and Halle |first1=Sherrie and Howard |title=Fountain (After Duchamp: 1-6) La Fortune (After Man Ray: 1-6) |journal=Grand Street |date=1992 |volume=42 |issue=1 |pages=81–95 |doi=10.2307/25007559 |jstor=25007559 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25007559 |access-date=28 August 2021|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Adding to Duchamp's audacious move, Levine turns his gesture back into an "art object" by elevating its materiality and finish. As a feminist artist, Levine remakes works specifically by male artists who commandeered patriarchal dominance in art history."<ref>{{Cite web|title=Fountain (Buddha) - Sherrie Levine {{!}} The Broad|url=https://www.thebroad.org/art/sherrie-levine/fountain-buddha|access-date=2020-08-14|website=www.thebroad.org}}</ref>
John Baldessari created an edition of multicolored ceramic bed pans with the text: "The Artist is a Fountain", in 2002.<ref>{{Cite web|title=John Baldessari - Repository (Orange/Blue); and Repository (Red/Green), 2002|url=https://www.phillips.com/detail/john-baldessari/NY030117/336|access-date=2020-08-14|website=Phillips|language=en}}</ref>
In 2003 Saul Melman constructed a massively enlarged version, ''Johnny on the Spot'', for Burning Man and subsequently burned it.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Chun|first=Kimberly|date=2013-08-15|title=Approach of Burning Man sparks an outbreak of art|url=https://www.sfgate.com/art/article/Approach-of-Burning-Man-sparks-an-outbreak-of-art-4736149.php|access-date=2020-08-14|website=SFGate}}</ref>
In 2015 Mike Bidlo created a cracked "bronze redo" of ''Fountain'' titled ''Fractured Fountain (Not Duchamp Fountain 1917)'', which was exhibited at Francis M. Naumann Fine Art in 2016.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Greenberger|first=Alex|date=2016-02-16|title=Mike Bidlo at Francis M. Naumann Fine Art|url=https://www.artnews.com/art-news/reviews/mike-bidlo-at-francis-m-naumann-fine-art-5838/|access-date=2020-08-14|website=ARTnews.com|language=en-US}}</ref> "Bidlo's version is a lovingly handcrafted porcelain copy that he then smashed, reconstituted, and cast in bronze."<ref>{{Cite web|title=Mike Bidlo: Not Duchamp Fountain and Bottle Rack {{!}} Francis M. Naumann Fine Art {{!}} Artsy|url=https://www.artsy.net/show/francis-m-naumann-fine-art-mike-bidlo-not-duchamp-fountain-and-bottle-rack|access-date=2020-08-14|website=www.artsy.net|language=en}}</ref>
Exactly 100 years to the day of the opening of the ''First Exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists'', Francis M. Naumann Fine Art opened "Marcel Duchamp Fountain: An Homage" on April 10, 2017.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Marcel Duchamp, Fountain: An Homage « ARTEIDOLIA|url=http://www.arteidolia.com/marcel-duchamp-fountain-an-homage-ron-morosan/|access-date=2020-08-14}}</ref> The show included ''Urinal Cake'' by Sophie Matisse, Russian constructivist urinals by Alexander Kosolapov, and a 2015 work by Ai Wei Wei.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2017-04-11|title="Fountain: An Homage" at Francis M. Naumann Fine Art|url=https://news.artnet.com/art-world/duchamp-slideshow-922667|access-date=2020-08-14|website=artnet News|language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Marcel Duchamp FOUNTAIN An Homage {{!}} Francis M. Naumann Fine Art {{!}} Artsy|url=https://www.artsy.net/show/francis-m-naumann-fine-art-marcel-duchamp-fountain-an-homage|access-date=2020-08-14|website=www.artsy.net|language=en}}</ref>
===Afterword=== From the 1950s, Duchamp's influence on American artists had grown exponentially. ''Life'' magazine referred to him as "perhaps the world's most eminent Dadaist", Dada's "spiritual leader", "Dada's Daddy" in a lengthy article published 28 April 1952.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=V1YEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA100 Winthrop Sargeant, ''Dada's Daddy, A new tribute is paid to Duchamp, pioneer on nonsense and nihilism''], Life, 28 April 1952, pp. 100–111</ref><ref name="Girst">{{Cite journal|last=Girst|first=Thomas|title=(Ab)Using Marcel Duchamp: The concept of the Readymade in post-War and contemporary American art|url=http://www.toutfait.com/issues/volume2/issue_5/articles/girst2/girst1.html|journal=Tout-fait: The Marcel Duchamp Studies Online Journal|issue=5|date=April 2003}}</ref> By the mid-50s his readymades were present in permanent collections of American museums.<ref name="Girst" />
In 1961, Duchamp wrote a letter to fellow Dadaist Hans Richter in which he supposedly said:
{{blockquote|This Neo-Dada, which they call New Realism, Pop Art, Assemblage, etc., is an easy way out, and lives on what Dada did. When I discovered the ready-mades I sought to discourage aesthetics. In Neo-Dada they have taken my readymades and found aesthetic beauty in them, I threw the bottle rack and the urinal into their faces as a challenge and now they admire them for their aesthetic beauty.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?isbn=071900943X Alan Young, ''Dada and After: Extremist Modernism and English Literature''], Manchester University Press, 1983, p. 202, {{ISBN|071900943X}}</ref><ref>Duchamp, in Hans Richter, ''Dada: Art and Anti-Art'', New York, McGraw Hill, 1965: pp. 207–208.</ref>}}
Richter, however, years later claimed those words were not by Duchamp. Richter had sent Duchamp this paragraph for comment, writing: "You threw the bottle rack and the urinal into their face...," etc. Duchamp simply wrote: "Ok, ça va très bien" ("Ok, that works very well") in the margins.<ref name="Girst"/><ref>Hans Richter, ''Begegnungen von Dada bis Heute'', Köln, DuMont: pp. 155ff.</ref>
Contrary to Richter's quote, Duchamp wrote favorably of Pop art in 1964, though indifferent to the humor or materials of Pop artists:
{{blockquote|Pop Art is a return to "conceptual" painting, virtually abandoned, except by the Surrealists, since Courbet, in favor of retinal painting... If you take a Campbell soup can and repeat it 50 times, you are not interested in the retinal image. What interests you is the concept that wants to put 50 Campbell soup cans on a canvas.<ref name="Girst" /><ref>Rosalind Constable, ''New York's Avant-garde, and How It Got There'', cited in Jennifer Gough-Cooper and Jacques Caumont, ''Ephemerides on and about Marcel Duchamp and Rrose Sélavy, 1887–1968'', in Pontus Hulten, ed., Marcel Duchamp, Cambridge, MIT Press, 1993, entry for May 17, 1964.</ref>}}
==Editions and provenance== Seventeen authorized versions of ''Fountain'' have been created, according to a list compiled by ''Cabinet'' magazine.<ref name=cabinet /> Two of them, including the 1917 original, are lost.
* 1917: Original version, lost. * 1950: Signed by Duchamp at the request of art dealer Sidney Janis for a gallery exhibition. Acquired by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1998.<ref>{{cite web|title=Fountain|publisher=Philadelphia Museum of Art|url=https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/92488|accessdate=2022-09-03}}</ref> * 1953: "Selected for sale at auction to benefit a friend of Duchamp" in Paris. Location unknown. * 1963: Made by Ulf Linde for an exhibition in Stockholm. Signed by Duchamp in 1964. Donated to Moderna Museet in 1965.<ref>{{cite web|title=Fountain|publisher=Moderna Museet|url=https://sis.modernamuseet.se/objects/1276/fountain|accessdate=2022-09-03}}</ref> * 1964: Galleria Schwarz edition ** Eight versions made for sale: *** 1/8: Bought by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1998.<ref>{{cite web|title=Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917/1964|publisher=San Francisco Museum of Modern Art|url=https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/98.291/|accessdate=2022-09-03}}</ref> *** 2/8: Bought by Tate Modern in London in 1999.<ref>{{cite web|title='Fountain', Marcel Duchamp, 1917, replica 1964|publisher=Tate Modern|url=https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/duchamp-fountain-t07573|accessdate=2022-09-03}}</ref> *** 3/8: Bought by the National Gallery of Canada in 1971.<ref>{{cite web|title=Fountain|publisher=National Gallery of Canada|url=https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artwork/fountain-3|accessdate=2022-09-03}}</ref> *** 4/8: Bought by an unnamed collector in 2002. *** 5/8: Bought by Dimitris Daskalopoulos in 1999 for $1.76 million, a record-high price at the time for a Duchamp work.<ref>[https://www.toutfait.com/marcel-duchamp-money-is-no-object-the-art-of-defying-the-art-market/ Francis M. Naumann, ''The Art Defying the Art Market''], Tout-fait: The Marcel Duchamp Studies Online Journal, vol. 2, 5, April 2003</ref><ref>[http://www.thecityreview.com/s02pco1.html Carter B. Horsley, ''Contemporary Art & 14 Duchamp Readymades''], The City Review, 2002</ref> *** 6/8: Bought by the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto in 1987.<ref>{{cite web|title=Fountain|publisher=Independent Administrative Institution National Museum of Art|url=https://search.artmuseums.go.jp/search_e/records.php?sakuhin=151163|accessdate=2022-09-03}}</ref> *** 7/8: In the collection of Musée Maillol in Paris. *** 8/8: Bought by Indiana University Art Museum in 1971.<ref>{{cite web|title=Fountain|publisher=Indiana University, Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art|url=https://artmuseum.indiana.edu/collections-online/browse/object.php?number=71.37.7|accessdate=2022-09-03}}</ref> ** Two artist's proofs: *** Duchamp's: Bought by the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris in 1986.<ref>{{cite web|title=Fontaine|publisher=Centre Pompidou|url=https://www.centrepompidou.fr/en/ressources/oeuvre/VgrNkuT|accessdate=2022-09-03}}</ref> *** Schwarz's: Bought by an unnamed collector in 2002 for $1.08 million.<ref>Kamien-Kazhdan, ''Remaking the Readymade'', p. 280</ref> ** Two museum versions: *** I/II: Donated to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in 1972.<ref>{{cite web|title=Fountain|publisher=The Israel Museum, Jerusalem|url=https://www.imj.org.il/en/collections/193771|accessdate=2022-09-03}}</ref> *** II/II: Donated to the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome in 1997. ** Prototype version: Bought by Andy Warhol in 1973. Bought by Dakis Joannou from Warhol's estate for $65,750 in 1988.<ref>Kamien-Kazhdan, ''Remaking the Readymade'', p. 274</ref>
==See also== *List of works by Marcel Duchamp *Found object *''Fountain Archive'' *''God'' (sculpture) *Art intervention *Transgressive art *''Apolinère Enameled'' *''Tulip Hysteria Co-ordinating'' *''America'', sculpture by Maurizio Cattelan
==References== {{Reflist|30em}}
===Notes=== <!--Please arrange alphabetically by author's surname or, if none, by title.--> *[http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/dada/blindman/2/index.htm ''The Blind Man''], Vol. 2, May 1917, New York City. *{{cite book|author=Cabanne, Pierre|title=Dialogs with Marcel Duchamp|location=[S.l.]|publisher=Da Capo Press|year=1979|orig-year=1969|language=fr|isbn=0-306-80303-8}} *Gammel, Irene. [http://ryerson.ca/mlc/inside29.html ''Baroness Elsa: Gender, Dada and Everyday Modernity'']. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002. *{{cite journal|author=Hubregtse, Menno|title=Robert J. Coady's The Soil and Marcel Duchamp's Fountain: Taste, Nationalism, Capitalism, and New York Dada|journal=RACAR: Revue d'art canadienne / Canadian Art Review|year=2009|volume=34|issue=2|pages=28–42|doi=10.7202/1069487ar|jstor=42630803|doi-access=free}} *{{cite book|title=Remaking the Readymade: Duchamp, Man Ray, and the Conundrum of the Replica|first=Adina|last=Kamien-Kazhdan|publisher=Routledge|year=2018|page=280}} *{{cite book|author=Kleiner, Fred S.|title=Gardner's Art Through the Ages: The Western Perspective|location=Belmont, Calif.|publisher=Thomson Wadsworth|year=2006|isbn=0-534-63640-3|url=https://archive.org/details/gardnersartthrou00fred}} *{{cite book|author=Marquis, Alice Goldfarb|title=Marcel Duchamp: The Bachelor Stripped Bare A Biography|location=Minneapolis: MFA Publications|year=2002|isbn=0-87846-644-4|publisher=MFA Publications}} *{{cite book|author=Tomkins, Calvin|title=Duchamp: A Biography|location=New York, N.Y.|publisher=Henry Holt and Company|year=1996|isbn=0-8050-5789-7|author-link=Calvin Tomkins}}
==Further reading== <!--Please arrange chronologically.--> *{{cite web|author=Betacourt, Michael|title=The Richard Mutt case: Looking for Marcel Duchamp's ''Fountain''|url=http://www.artscienceresearchlab.org/articles/betacourt.htm|publisher=Art Science Research Laboratory|year=2003|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060301001858/http://www.artscienceresearchlab.org/articles/betacourt.htm|archive-date=1 March 2006}} *{{cite magazine|last=West|first=Patrick|title=He was just taking the piss: Observations on Duchamp and his urinal|url=https://www.newstatesman.com/node/161122|magazine=New Statesman|date=13 December 2004}} *Schwarz, Arturo, ''The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp'', revised and expanded edition, New York 1997, no. 345, pp. 648–50 *Kuenzli, Rudolf E., Naumann, Francis M., ''Marcel Duchamp: Artist of the Century'', Issue 16 of Dada surrealism, MIT Press, 1991, {{ISBN|0262610728}} * Adcock, Craig, ''Marcel Duchamp's Notes from the Large Glass: An N-Dimensional Analysis'', Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1983, 29–39, {{ISBN|0835714543}} * Sidney Janis Gallery, ''Challenge and Defy: Extreme Examples by XX Century Artists, French and American'', The New York 57th Street Journal, 25 September 1950
==External links==
{{Commons category}} *[https://www.toutfait.com/unmaking_the_museum/fountain.html ''Fountain'', Tout-Fait: Marcel Duchamp Studies Online journal] *[http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/duchamps-fountain.html Duchamp's ''Fountain''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130425082006/http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/duchamps-fountain.html |date=2013-04-25 }}, Smarthistory at Khan Academy *[http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/dada.html Duchamp and the Ready-Mades], Smarthistory at Khan Academy *[http://www.thejackdaw.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Duchamp-Fountain-II1.pdf Duchamp and the Fountain, November, December, galley 4/9/15] *[https://archive.org/details/marcelduchampfou0000camf/page/162/mode/2up William A. Camfield, ''Marcel Duchamp, Fountain'', 1989], Houston Fine Art Press, Internet Archive
{{Marcel Duchamp|state=expanded}} {{Modernism}} {{Alfred Stieglitz}}
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Category:Works by Marcel Duchamp Category:1917 sculptures Category:Urinals Category:Lost sculptures Category:Modernist sculpture Category:Found object Category:Vandalized works of art Category:1910s photographs Category:Photographs by Alfred Stieglitz Category:Sculpture controversies Category:Toilets in art Category:Conceptual art